The negative effects of combat were nightmares and I'd get jumpy around certain noises and stuff but you'd have that after a car accident or a bad divorce. Life's filled with trauma. You don't need to go to war to find it it's going to find you. We all deal with it and the effects go away after awhile. At least they did for me.
The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon shook our nation to the core. Americans were deeply frightened sad and angry and they rallied around a President who at the time showed impressive certitude and calm.
An unexamined faith is not worth having for fundamentalism and uncritical certitude entail the rejection of one of the great human gifts: that of free will of the liberty to make up our own minds based on evidence and tradition and reason.